神话和神话学
神话和神话学《民间文化论坛》2004年第4期
刘宗迪
“神话”一词可以在不同语境中表示不同的含义。在一般用语中，神话一词表示所有荒诞无据的说法；在文学中，神话指表现诸神、半神以及英雄的神奇故事的幻想性叙事文学；在文化批判中，神话指一个社会共同体所公认或者被强加的关于自身历史和意义的宏大叙事或意识形态，如人们常说的政治神话和国家神话等；在人类学和民俗学中，神话指在一个族群中世代流传的关于世界、人类、自然万物、人文诸相等之来历和意义的传统叙事。“神话学”则是人类学和民俗学中研究神话的一个分支学科。
“神话”一词源于古希腊的mythos，而这个词在古希腊是与logos（通常译为“逻各斯”）一词相对而言的，赫西俄德和荷马对这两个词的用法就已经体现了两者的对立，在他们的叙事诗和史诗中，神话（mythos）通常指强者的富于权威性和真理性的权力话语，而逻各斯（logos）则指弱者的充满欺骗和诱惑的花言巧语。在用诗歌写作的前苏格拉底哲学家中，两者的这一语用学对比得以继续，并被进一步引申，神话指由神（通常是诗神缪斯）赋予灵感和权威的话语，它具有毋庸置疑的真理和无可违抗的力量，而逻各斯则指依靠说服和论证方能让人信服的世俗性话语，其真理性和权威性是有待于用事实和道理证明的，前者通常是指诗歌，后者则主要是指散文。总之，在前苏格拉底时代，“神话”是较之“逻各斯”高级的话语范畴。
但这种等级观念在苏格拉底之后发生了逆转。柏拉图笔下的苏格拉底常常流露出对神话的不敬，而柏拉图本人则对神话进行了重新界定，彻底颠倒了神话和逻各斯的等级关系，在他看来，“逻各斯”才是真理的源泉，而“神话”则是虚假的骗人的，荷马等诗人所讲述那些关于神的故事完全不符合神的理念和城邦的道德规范，只是对教育儿童、妇女和低等级的人才有用。
柏拉图对神话的指责是与其对诗人和诗歌的指责同时进行的，在《理想国》中他罗列了诗人的一系列罪状，最后决定把诗人赶出“哲学王”统治下的“理性国”。柏拉图对于诗人的放逐，不仅仅是两种价值观的斗争，也不仅仅是诗人和哲学家争权夺利的斗争，它其实反映了两种文化传统之争，一方面是以荷马史诗传统为代表的古老的口头传统，一方面是以新兴的“爱智者”（哲学家）权贵为代表的书写传统。前苏格拉底时代的著述（包括哲学家的著作）都是用史诗体的诗歌和韵文“写”成，说明这些著作原本是口头吟诵的，与史诗游吟传统一脉相承，苏格拉底本人没有留下任何书面著述，只是以公开的和私下的演讲和辩论作为授业解惑的手段，而柏拉图则开始了用散文书写的传统，但其作品也大部分是用口语写成的对话录，说明柏拉图正处于从口头传统到书写传统的转折点上。
文字和口语是两种大相径庭的表达媒介，决定了书写传统和口头传统在修辞、表达、行文、叙事等各方面都迥异其趣，并进而形成了两种传统对于真理、权威等的不同判断标准和价值标准，按书写传统的表达方式衡量，口头传统的表达显得不可理喻、匪夷所思、难以理解，因此，口头传统就丧失了其原本作为真理和权威源泉的正宗地位，其中那些世代流传的关于诸神的故事被柏拉图视为“虚构”和“谎言”。由此可见，所谓“神话”，在柏拉图这里，不过是书写传统从其本身的真理观和价值观出发对于口头传统的重新定位和判断，从一开始就满含着书写文明对于口头文明、知识新贵对于传统知识的偏见。柏拉图对于神话和诗歌的抨击和批评是西方学术史和思想史上把神话当成学术谈论话题的开始，尽管在当时神话学还没有成为一个独立的学科，但柏拉图对于神话的这种满含贬义的界定，却奠定了后世西方神话学规定和看待神话的认识论视野和价值观取向。
对“神话”一词涵义的截然对立又相互纠结的两种理解就由此而来。一方面，从本体论的角度看来，神话是一种文化传统中世代相传的真理、智慧和历史记忆，是一种文化传统理解宇宙、历史和命运的根本依据和意义源泉，是一种文明的精神核心和宏大叙事；另一方面，从学者的认识论的角度看来，神话是一种早已过时的、丧失了存在依据、不合乎理性逻辑、无法证实的荒唐话语和虚假知识，应该从人类知识中清除，代之以理性知识。也正是“神话”一词涵义的这种内在张力，形成了神话学学科内部的固有矛盾，并导致两大神话学流派的分歧，即启蒙主义的神话学和浪漫主义的神话学。
西方启蒙运动之后，科学成为理解知识的范式，实证性和合理性成为判断真理和权威的标准，一切知识和叙事，必须接受经验和理性的检验，凡是不能被证实和说明的，就是迷信和神话，探讨这些迷信和神话的来历并进而破除迷信和神话，成为启蒙主义神话学的首要任务，神话和迷信一道，被归结为原始人的人性缺陷和思维病态。随着殖民运动对现代“原始”族群和落后社会的发现，这些族群和社会中，那些无法纳入西方理性知识和实证科学范畴得以证明和说明的本土知识和叙事也被贴上了“神话”的标签。“神话”一词以及神话学学科实际上成了西方中心主义区分“现代”与“传统”、“文明”与“野蛮”、“西方”与“非西方”的权力话语。
与此同时，在西方民族国家的兴起过程中，本土草根社会中世代流传的神话则被民族主义者作为弘扬本土传统、强化民族认同的依据，因此，神话在本体上的真理价值、教化功能和审美魅力被重新发现，从而形成了以德国神话学派为代表的浪漫主义神话学，阐发神话荒诞外表下的真理和智慧以及这种真理和智慧的古老渊源，藉以批判启蒙理性和实证科学，则是浪漫主义神话学的主要旨趣。
神话学这门西方学科在清末民初随着启蒙主义思潮和西学东渐运动而被引进中国学术界，神话学初入中土，就面临着在原本缺乏神话学的中国学术传统中“发现神话”的任务，因为唯有在中国发现神话，神话学在中国才有立足之地。古代典籍中，尤其是古史传说中，那些涉及天地开辟、文化造物等内容的言辞荒诞的故事，因为无法被史料证实或无法被理性逻辑说明，就被顺理成章地当成了神话，经过以顾颉刚、杨宽为代表的《古史辨》派、以茅盾为代表的人类学神话学派和以袁珂为代表的文学派的努力，诸如此类的文献资料被从华夏传世典籍中抉剔、区分出来，构成了华夏古代神话的资料集，神话学这个外来学科遂在中国现代学术中落地生根。上个世纪三十年代后，随着民族学、人类学调查的开展，中国境内少数民族的口头传统中那些涉及开天辟地、人类诞生、天灾人祸、族群迁徙等的内容，也被作为“活态神话”，纳入神话学研究的范畴。
总之，“神话”这个看似简单的学术术语，其实并非那么不言而喻，而是一个充满歧义的术语，这些歧义的背后则有着深远的历史文化背景和潜行默运的权力机制。
在民俗学和民间文学中，“神话”常常被与史诗、歌谣、谚语、传说、故事、笑话相提并论，并通常在文体论中有论述神话的专题，但是，实在说来，神话并非一种能够与史诗、歌谣等相提并论的有着特定体裁、题材和作品集的文体，它甚至不是一个模糊边界的文类，它只是一个话语范畴，这种话语范畴也并非是有其现成的特征和边界，将这种话语范畴与其他话语区分开来的界限，与其是现成的、客观存在的，不如说是由“神话学”这门学科所人为地划分出来的。柏拉图把与书写传统相异己从而无法被其所理解的口头传统命名为神话，启蒙主义神话学把非西方和非现代的无法被科学理性理解和证实的话语和知识命名为神话，中国现代神话学把古代典籍中符合西方神话标准的记载和少数民族的口头传统命名为神话，“神话”只是神话学从其先在的真理和知识标准出发对某种话语范畴的划界和命名。因此，与其说先有现成的神话资料集，然后才有谈论神话的神话学，不如说是先有了神话学这门学科，然后，才由这门学科为了自身的成立而从话语总体中挑选出一些符合其“神话”判别标准的话语，作为研究的材料，也就是说，在神话学之前并不“客观存在”着某种与其他话语有着明确区别的神话这种东西，神话其实是神话学建构的产物。正因为神话的诞生与神话学的诞生密不可分，因此，在西方语文中，mythology一词，既指神话学（the field of scholarship dealing with the systematic collection and study of myths），又指神话集（a body or collection of myths belonging to a people and addressing their origin, history, deities, ancestors, and heroes），也正因此，我们才不得不把“神话”和“神话学”放在一个词条进行叙述。
RE:神话和神话学
Mythologyfromhttp://encarta.msn.com/
Article Outline
Introduction; What Are Myths?; Common Types of Myths; Interpreting Myths; Influence of Myths
IIntroduction
Mythology, the body of myths of a particular culture, and the study and interpretation of such myths. A myth may be broadly defined as a narrative that through many retellings has become an accepted tradition in a society. By this definition, the term mythology might include all traditional tales, from the creation stories of ancient Egypt to the sagas of Icelandic literature to the American folktale of Paul Bunyan.
Myths are universal, occurring in almost all cultures. They typically date from a time before the introduction of writing, when they were passed orally from one generation to the next. Myths deal with basic questions about the nature of the world and human experience, and because of their all-encompassing nature, myths can illuminate many aspects of a culture.
IIWhat Are Myths?
Although it is difficult to draw rigid distinctions among various types of traditional tales, people who study mythology find it useful to categorize them. The three most common types of tales are sagas, legends, and folktales.
When a tale is based on a great historical (or supposedly historical) event, it is generally known as a saga. Despite a saga’s basis in very distant historical events, its dramatic structure and characters are the product of storytellers’ imaginations. Famous sagas include the Greek story of the Trojan War and the Germanic epic poem the Nibelungenlied (Song of the Nibelungs).
A legend is a fictional story associated with a historical person or place. For example, many early saints of the Christian church are historical figures whose lives have been embellished with legend (see Saint Denis; Saint George). Legends often provide examples of the virtues of honored figures in the history of a group or nation. The traditional American story about young George Washington and the cherry tree-in which he could not lie about chopping it down-is best described as a legend, because George Washington is a historical figure but the story about the cherry tree is recognized today as fictional.
Folktales, a third variety of traditional tale, are usually simple narratives of adventure built around elements of character and plot-for example, the young man who slays a monster and wins the hand of a princess. The Greek tale of Perseus is a good example of this theme. He saves the Ethiopian princess Andromeda from a sea monster and then marries her. Folktales may contain a moral or observation about life, but their chief purpose is entertainment.
Myths may include features of sagas, legends, and folktales. What makes one of these tales a myth is its serious purpose and its importance to the culture. Experts usually define a myth as a story that has compelling drama and deals with basic elements and assumptions of a culture. Myths explain, for example, how the world began; how humans and animals came into being; how certain customs, gestures, or forms of human activity originated; and how the divine and human worlds interact. Many myths take place at a time before the world as human beings know it came into being. Because myth-making often involves gods, other supernatural beings, and processes beyond human understanding, some scholars have viewed it as a dimension of religion. However, many myths address topics that are not typically considered religious-for example, why features of the landscape take a certain shape.
IIICommon Types of Myths
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No system of classification encompasses every type of myth, but in discussing myths it is helpful to group them into broad categories. This article concentrates on three major categories: cosmic myths, myths of gods, and hero myths.
ACosmic Myths
Cosmic myths are concerned with the world and how it is ordered. They seek to explain the origin of the world, universal catastrophes such as fire or flood, and the afterlife. Nearly all mythologies have stories about creation, a type of story technically known as cosmogony, meaning “birth of the world.” Creation stories also include accounts of how human beings first came into existence and how death and suffering entered human experience.
The oldest cosmogonies known today are those of Egypt and the ancient Near East. An example is the creation epic of the Babylonians, Enuma elish (When on high), which dates back to at least the 12th century bc. According to Enuma elish, in the beginning of the world there was only a watery void in which fresh waters mingled with salt waters of the sea. The fresh waters were personified as Apsu, a male being, and the salt waters as Tiamat, a female. The myth describes a conflict between these earliest gods and a younger generation that sprang from them. Ultimately the younger gods won the war, led by Marduk, a god of thunder and lightning who resembles the Greek god Zeus and the Norse god Thor. Marduk defeated the army of the elder gods and killed Tiamat-represented as a dragon-in single combat. He then split her carcass in two, forming heaven and earth from the halves, and established the sun, moon, and constellations.
Enuma elish contains several themes common to many ancient Near Eastern creation stories: the ordering of the world out of chaos, the central role of waters in the creation of the world, the victory of a divine king over enemies who represent chaos, and the creation of matter from the corpse of a world-mother. A very different type of creation story appears in the Spider Woman myth of the Native American Hopi people. According to this narrative, in the beginning the only two beings in existence were Tawa, the sun god, and Spider Woman, an earth goddess who lived in a shadowy, cavelike underworld. Human beings were created from clay by Spider Woman and animated by the gaze of Tawa. Tawa used his light and heat to create dry land, and the world took shape. Spider Woman led the humans and other creatures up to the earth’s surface, and each species was assigned its proper residence and role in the world. This myth features the common Native American theme of emergence, in which creatures emerge from the earth as if from a mother’s womb.
Other types of creation myth occur in the cosmogony of the Maya people, with its many cycles of creation and destruction, and in the ancient Hebrew account of creation by a single, all-powerful deity.
BMyths of the Gods
Many myths do not directly concern human beings, but focus rather on the activities of the gods in their own realm. In many mythologies the gods form a divine family, or pantheon (from the Greek pan, meaning “all,” and theos, “god”). The story of a power struggle within a pantheon is common to a large number of world mythologies-for example, the Babylonian Enuma elish centers on Marduk’s struggle for supremacy and his eventual victory over Tiamat. Greek mythology features a similar story of struggle between generations. In Greek mythology, the earliest gods were Gaea (Earth) and Uranus (Heaven), and their children were called the Titans. The eldest of the Titans, Cronus, overthrew his father and was eventually overthrown by his own son, Zeus, who became the new master of the universe. Similarly, the Aesir-the pantheon of the Norse gods-had to overcome an older group called the Vanir before gaining power. Unlike the Greek and Babylonian accounts, the Norse myth features a reconciliation between the two sides.
Across cultures, mythologies tend to describe similar characters. A common character is the trickster. The trickster is recklessly bold and even immoral, but through his inventiveness he often helps human beings. In Greek mythology, Hermes (best known as the messenger of the gods) was a famous trickster. In one version of a characteristic tale, Hermes, while still an infant, stole the cattle of his half-brother Apollo. To avoid leaving a trail that could be followed, Hermes made shoes from the bark of a tree and used grass to tie them to the cattle’s hooves. When Apollo nonetheless discovered that Hermes had stolen his cattle, he was furious. In the end, Apollo was so enchanted with the music of a lyre that Hermes had made that he allowed Hermes to keep the cattle in exchange for the lyre. Other tricksters of mythology are the West African god Eshu, who tricked the supreme god Olodumare into abandoning the earth to dwell in heaven; the Indian god Krishna, whose trickery often aims at a higher moral purpose; and the Native American Coyote, who scattered the once-orderly stars in the sky and strewed the plants on earth.
Myths about the gods are as numerous as the cultures that produce them. Other types that occur across various cultures include myths about the Great Mother (for example, the Mesopotamian Ishtar, who journeys to the underworld to rescue her lost lover Tammuz); the Dying God (for example, the Egyptian Osiris, who is murdered and dismembered but ultimately resurrected); and the Savior God (for example, the Greek Prometheus, who helps humanity at the cost of incurring Zeus’s anger).
CMyths of Heroes
Nearly all cultures have produced myths about heroes. Some heroes, such as the Greek Achilles, have one mortal and one divine parent. Others are fully human but are blessed with godlike strength or beauty. Many myths about heroes concern significant phases of the hero’s career, such as the circumstances of the hero’s birth, a journey or quest, and the return home.
The birth and infancy of a mythological hero is often exceptional or even miraculous. In the ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean world, the births of many heroes followed similar patterns. For example, the Hebrew prophet Moses, the Greek hero Oedipus, and the Roman heroes Romulus and Remus were all exposed to the elements at birth and left to die, but miraculously survived. Other heroes were immediately able to care for themselves. In early infancy, the Greek hero Hercules strangled a pair of enormous serpents sent to kill him. The Irish Cú Chulainn, who later became a great warrior, also performed astonishing feats of strength as a child.
Most heroes set off on a quest or a journey of some kind. One of the earliest tales of a hero’s journey is the Babylonian story known as the Gilgamesh epic, written in cuneiform on 12 clay tablets in about 2000 bc. The hero, Gilgamesh, embarks on a quest for immortality. A goddess named Siduri guides him, and in the course of his adventures he must do combat with monsters and visit the world of the dead. At the end of the quest, Gilgamesh must accept mortality, which the gods allotted to human beings when they created them. In Greek and Roman mythology the stories of Jason (who sailed in quest of the Golden Fleece) and of Aeneas (who traveled from Troy to Italy to found Rome) likewise describe journeys or quests. Other narratives that may be interpreted as heroic journeys include the biblical story of the Hebrew prophet Moses, who led his people on a 40-year journey through the wilderness, and the Celtic tale of King Arthur and the quest for the Holy Grail (see Arthurian Legend).
The most famous tale of a hero’s return home is probably the ancient Greek story of Odysseus, recounted in the Odyssey by the poet Homer. When the story opens, Odysseus has been away for nearly 20 years, fighting in the Trojan War and then kept captive by the sea nymph Calypso. Back in his kingdom of Ithaca, suitors who want to marry his wife Penelope are devouring and wasting his property and plotting against his son. Zeus persuades Calypso to let Odysseus leave and return home, but the god Poseidon is angry with Odysseus and is determined to kill him. In the course of his journey, Odysseus is shipwrecked, held captive by Calypso, and nearly devoured by monsters; all his companions are killed. When he finally returns to Ithaca, penniless and without allies, he must plot the destruction of the suitors and persuade Penelope that he really is who he claims to be. Of course, he succeeds brilliantly.
IVInterpreting Myths
The universal human practice of myth-making appears to be the earliest means by which people interpreted the natural world and the society in which they lived. Thus myth has been the dominant mode of human reflection for the greater part of human history. Greek thinkers of the 6th century bc were the first people known to question the validity of myth-making. In subsequent centuries the rationalism introduced by these Greeks and the monotheism (belief in one God) of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all but replaced myth-making throughout much of the world. In some Asian and African cultures, however, traditional stories retained their power and became important elements of religious systems. And some cultures in the modern world maintain a worldview based primarily on myths. These cultures include Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians, and the Maori of New Zealand.
AAntiquity
In the early stages of Greek civilization, as in other ancient cultures, the truth of myths was taken for granted. The Greek word mythos, from which the English word myth is derived, was originally used to describe any narrative. Early Greek authors who employed the term drew no rigid distinction between tales that were historical or factual and those that were not.
In the 6th century bc, however, Greek thinkers began to question the validity of their culture’s traditional tales, and the word mythos came to denote an implausible story. Greek philosopher Xenophanes, for example, argued that much of the behavior that the poets Homer and Hesiod attributed to the gods was unworthy of divine beings. By the 5th century bc, serious Greek thinkers tended to regard the old myths as naive explanations for natural phenomena or simply to reject them altogether. Nevertheless, myths retained their cultural importance, even after they had come under attack from philosophers. The ancient Greek tragedies, which remained central to civic and religious life in Athens through the end of the 5th century bc, drew their subject matter largely from myths.
In the early 4th century bc, Greek philosopher Plato systematically contrasted logos, or rational argument, with mythos-which in Plato’s view was little better than outright falsehood. In his philosophical dialogue The Republic, Plato argued that the ideal commonwealth should exclude traditional mythological poetry on the grounds that it was full of dangerous falsehoods. Plato himself nevertheless devised myths of a sort to explore such topics as the birth of the world and death and the afterlife, which in his view fell outside the boundaries of logical explanation.
After Plato, most thinkers either tried to apply reason to the supernatural elements in myths or interpreted them symbolically. Euhemerus, a Greek writer of the 4th century bc, traced the origin of the gods to the deification of human rulers by their grateful subjects. This explanation for the gods is consequently known as euhemerism. Philosophers known as the Stoics and-much later-the Neoplatonists interpreted myths as allegories (narratives that employ picturesque language and images to convey a hidden message). Even as classical Greco-Roman civilization went into decline in the early centuries ad, the older, more critical spirit of Xenophanes was kept alive by Greek essayist and satirist Lucian of Samosata. In the 2nd century Lucian lampooned such myths as the birth of Athena from Zeus’s head, as well as the Judgment of Paris, which supposedly led to the Trojan War.
BHebrew and Early Christian Interpretations
In the Hebrew tradition, the break from mythology took a different direction than it had taken among the Greeks. Here, the source of tension was not the incompatibility of myth and reason-as it had been with the Greeks-but the incompatibility of Near Eastern polytheism (belief in many gods) and Hebrew monotheism. Greek thinkers resolved the primary tension (myth versus reason) by identifying the divine figures in Near Eastern mythology as natural elements and forces, such as the sun and the wind. The Hebrew Bible resolved the primary tension (polytheism versus monotheism) by concentrating on the role of a supreme god and by minimizing or eliminating the roles of all other characters who could be considered divine.
As classical civilization gave way to Christianity, Christian thinkers argued about the role of myth in their religion. The traditional myths had undergone criticism and reinterpretation by Greek writers from Xenophanes to Lucian, over a period of seven centuries. Most Christian thinkers found this philosophical critique-particularly euhemerism-useful in their struggle against pagan culture and its worship of many gods. They argued that the pagan gods were actually no more than human rulers who had been mistakenly deified by their followers. Some Christian thinkers, however, attempted to establish a parallel between Christian ideas and certain aspects of pagan mythology. In the 2nd century, theologian Justin Martyr drew a comparison between Hermes (the divine messenger) and Christ (the representative of God). In the 4th century, theologian Saint Augustine argued that Christians should utilize the traditions of the pagan world in furthering the Christian worldview.
In this spirit, pagan mythological themes were reinterpreted and used symbolically in early Christian art. For example, a common motif of pagan art was the figure of Odysseus bound to the mast of his ship so that he could hear the irresistibly sweet singing of the Sirens without danger of temptation. In Christian art, this motif was adapted to symbolize a soul bound to the wood of the cross, through which the believer enters the port of salvation. Other traditional pagan motifs that were used in Christian allegories include Helios on his chariot of fire (Christ, the “light of the world” in biblical language) and the figures of Cupid and Psyche (Christ and the soul). See also Early Christian Art and Architecture.
CThe Middle Ages and Renaissance
In the Middle Ages (5th century to 15th century) allegorical interpretation of the ancient myths predominated. Even the works of the ancient Roman poet Ovid, whose writings about the pagan gods were famous for their irreverence and bawdiness, received allegorical interpretation. For example, Ovid’s Metamorphoses includes a story of how Zeus fathered Perseus by approaching Danae in a shower of gold; this tale was interpreted in light of the biblical story of Mary’s virgin conception of Jesus. The entire Metamorphoses offered a rich source of material for medieval Christian allegory, starting with its tale of the creation and universal flood, and continuing through the flight of Pha?thon (who foolishly tried to drive the chariot of the sun) to the long philosophical speech of Greek philosopher Pythagoras at the end.
Mythological interpretation in the Renaissance (14th century to 17th century) continued the allegorizing approach of the Middle Ages. An old idea that enjoyed a new vogue in the Renaissance was astrology, which associated the personalities of the pagan gods with the planets that bore their names-Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and so forth. In a more philosophical vein, the Neoplatonist thinkers in Italy-especially Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola-attempted to reconcile pagan mythology with Christian theology. Typically, however, Renaissance thinkers interpreted the material of pagan mythology in an imaginative rather than theoretical manner, drawing upon it for inspiration in painting and poetry.
DThe Age of Enlightenment
During the Age of Enlightenment (17th and 18th centuries), with its emphasis on rationality, the allegorical interpretation of myths fell into disfavor. At the beginning of this period, myths were dismissed by intellectuals as absurd and superstitious fabrications, in part because of a climate of hostility toward all forms of religion. The so-called Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, in which the relative merits of classical and modern literature were debated, lent additional force to the devaluing of myths and myth-making. French writer Pierre Bayle, in his Dictionnaire historique et critique (Historical and Critical Dictionary, 1697), ridiculed the absurdity of the ancient Greek and Roman myths.
In the late 17th century, a different approach to mythology arose in the context of new information about myth-making peoples (especially those in the Americas). Europeans had become aware of these peoples in the course of the voyages of discovery of the 16th and 17th centuries. Working on the assumption that these cultures could provide insight into the experience of prehistoric societies, European scholars sought the origins of mythology in the "childhood of man," when human beings supposedly first formulated myths as a response to their physical and social environment. The studies made in this period were consolidated in the work of German scholar Christian Gottlob Heyne, who was the first scholar to use the Latin term mythus (instead of fabula, meaning "fable") to refer to the tales of heroes and gods.
EThe 19th-Century Science of Mythology
As more and more material from other cultures became available, European scholars came to recognize even greater complexity in mythological traditions. Especially valuable was the evidence provided by ancient Indian and Iranian texts such as the Bhagavad-Gita and the Zend-Avesta. From these sources it became apparent that the character of myths varied widely, not only by geographical region but also by historical period. German scholar Karl Otfried Müller followed this line of inquiry in his Prolegomena zu einer wissenschaftlichen Mythologie (Prolegomena to a Scientific Mythology, 1825). He argued that the relatively simple Greek myth of Persephone reflects the concerns of a basic agricultural community, whereas the more involved and complex myths found later in Homer are the product of a more developed society.
Scholars also attempted to tie various myths of the world together in some way. From the late 18th century through the early 19th century, the comparative study of languages had led to the reconstruction of a hypothetical parent language to account for striking similarities among the various languages of Europe and the Near East. These languages, scholars concluded, belonged to an Indo-European language family. Experts on mythology likewise searched for a parent mythology that presumably stood behind the mythologies of all the European peoples. German-born British scholar Max Müller concluded that the Rig-Veda of ancient India-the oldest preserved body of literature written in an Indo-European language-reflected the earliest stages of an Indo-European mythology. Müller attributed all later myths to misunderstandings that arose from the picturesque terms in which early peoples described natural phenomena. For example, an expression like “maiden dawn” for “sunrise” resulted first in personification of the dawn, and then in myths about her.
Later in the 19th century the theory of evolution put forward by English naturalist Charles Darwin heavily influenced the study of mythology. Scholars excavated the history of mythology, much as they would excavate fossil-bearing geological formations, for relics from the distant past. This approach can be seen in the work of British anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor. In Primitive Culture (1871), Tylor organized the religious and philosophical development of humanity into separate and distinct evolutionary stages. Similarly, British anthropologist Sir James George Frazer proposed a three-stage evolutionary scheme in The Golden Bough (3rd edition, 1912-1915). According to Frazer’s scheme, human beings first attributed natural phenomena to arbitrary supernatural forces (magic), later explaining them as the will of the gods (religion), and finally subjecting them to rational investigation (science).
The research of British scholar William Robertson Smith, published in Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (1889), also influenced Frazer. Through Smith’s work, Frazer came to believe that many myths had their origin in the ritual practices of ancient agricultural peoples, for whom the annual cycles of vegetation were of central importance. The myth and ritual theory, as this approach came to be called, was developed most fully by British scholar Jane Ellen Harrison. Using insight gained from the work of French sociologist émile Durkheim, Harrison argued that all myths have their origin in collective rituals of a society. This approach reached its most extreme form in the so-called functionalism of British anthropologist A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, who held that every myth implies a ritual, and every ritual implies a myth.
F20th-Century Approaches
Most analyses of myths in the 18th and 19th centuries showed a tendency to reduce myths to some essential core-whether the seasonal cycles of nature, historical circumstances, or ritual. That core supposedly remained once the fanciful elements of the narratives had been stripped away. In the 20th century, investigators began to pay closer attention to the content of the narratives themselves. Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud held that myths-like dreams-condense the material of experience and represent it in symbols. Freud’s pupil Carl Jung took this psychological approach in a different direction. Jung viewed myths not as relics of the infancy of the human race, but as revelations of humanity’s tendency to draw on a collective store of what he called archetypes-a set of patterns in the unconscious mind that people in all cultures express through similar images and symbols. French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss argued that the primary function of myths is to resolve contradictions between such basic sets of opposites as life and death, nature and culture, and self and society.
What has become clear is that myth-making is an extremely varied and complex human activity. As in other creative activities, an enormous number of social, environmental, and personal factors come into play that make it difficult to summarize or explain myth-making from a single vantage point. While every theory offers something illuminating and useful to the understanding of some myths or mythological traditions, it seems unlikely that anyone will ever devise a theory that accounts for every type of tale that is classified as myth.
RE:神话和神话学
VInfluence of MythsMythology has exerted a pervasive influence on the arts in all parts of the world from the earliest times. In the Americas, people expressed mythological themes using materials such as sand (in the sandpaintings of the Navajo) and stone (in the jade masks of the Olmec). In Oceania, wood was a preferred material, used to created sculptures and masks. The indigenous peoples of Central and South America used ceramics for funerary urns and sculptures of gods and mythological figures. In ancient Europe as well, mythological themes were treated in a variety of media, including stone, wood, and metal.
Some of the richest artistic traditions involving mythology are found in the cultures of West Africa. Particularly prominent in sculpture are the Nommo, celestial twins whose representations can be studied both in the way they have changed over time and in the way they vary across cultures. Despite the artistic value of pieces inspired by myth, it is misleading to isolate the art objects of myth-making cultures from their religious and intellectual context. The statuettes and masks of the Dogon people, for example, do not exist primarily to satisfy an aesthetic impulse, but to serve as instruments in religious acts.
Even apart from cultures in which myth-making is bound up with ritual, myths have provided a wealth of material for the writer and artist since the beginning of recorded history. The divine characters employed by Homer in his epics-principally Zeus, Hera, Athena, Aphrodite, Apollo, and Ares-became the common property of poets throughout antiquity. In addition, Greek writers of tragedy drew upon the traditional body of myth to create such human characters as Agamemnon and Clytemnestra (in the Oresteia of Aeschylus); Antigone (in the play of the same name by Sophocles); and Electra (in plays by Sophocles and Euripides).
The gods have also provided inspiration to many visual artists through the centuries. As an ideal of masculine beauty, Apollo figures prominently in artworks of all periods. The most famous representation of Apollo is the Apollo Belvedere, an ancient Roman sculpture copied from a Greek original, in the Vatican Museum in Rome. Many artists of the Renaissance and the Baroque Era (1600 to 1750) represented Apollo as well. The goddess Venus, equally renowned for beauty, has inspired many artists since ancient times. Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli copied an ancient sculpture in his famous painting Birth of Venus (after 1482, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy).
In literature and music the debt to mythological themes is equally pronounced. Antigone, a daughter of Oedipus, became famous in the play by Sophocles, which portrays the conflict between obedience to the laws of the state and to the higher laws of the gods. Among those who later used themes from her life are French playwrights Jean Cocteau (Antigone, 1922) and Jean Anouilh (Antigone, 1942) and German playwright Bertolt Brecht (Antigone, 1948). Electra, the unhappy daughter of Agamemnon who seeks to avenge her father’s murder, has been the subject of plays by French playwright Jean-Paul Sartre (The Flies, 1943) and American playwright Eugene O’Neill (Mourning Becomes Elektra, 1931), and of a celebrated opera by German composer Richard Strauss (Elektra, 1909). It is no exaggeration to say that art, music, and literature throughout the world would be unimaginably different without the influence of mythology.
See also Greek Mythology; Roman Mythology; Egyptian Mythology; Scandinavian Mythology; Ancient Middle Eastern Religions; Native American Religions.
RE:神话和神话学
Mythologyby Bernard Doyle
Definitions of Myth
Before defining the term "mythology" one needs to define the meaning of the word "myth". The word itself comes from the Greek "mythos" which originally meant "speech" or "discourse" but which later came to mean "fable" or "legend". In this document the word "myth" will be defined as a story of forgotten or vague origin, basically religious or supernatural in nature, which seeks to explain or rationalize one or more aspects of the world or a society.
Furthermore, in the context of this document, all myths are, at some stage, actually believed to be true by the peoples of the societies that used or originated the myth. Our definition is thus clearly distinguished from the use of the word myth in everyday speech which basically refers to any unreal or imaginary story.
A myth is also distinctly different from an allegory or parable which is a story deliberately made up to illustrate some moral point but which has never been assumed to be true by anyone.
Some myths describe some actual historical event, but have been embellished and refashioned by various story tellers over time so that it is impossible to tell what really happened. In this last aspect myths have a legendary and historical nature.
Definitions of Mythology
For our purposes the word mythology has two related meanings. Firstly it refers to a collection of myths that together form a mythological system. Thus one can speak of "Egyptian Mythology", "Indian Mythology", "Maori Mythology" or "Greek Mythology". In this sense one is describing a system of myths which were used by a particular society at some particular time in human history. It is also possible to group mythologies in other ways. For example one can group them geographically and then speak of "Oceanic Mythology", "Oriental Mythology" and "African Mythology".
A second meaning of the term mythology is the academic study of myths and systems of myths in general.
The types of individual myths and the purpose of mythology
Broadly speaking myths and mythologies seek to rationalize and explain the universe and all that is in it. Thus, they have a similar function to science, theology, religion and history in modern societies. Systems of myths have provided a cosmological and historical framework for societies that have lacked the more sophisticated knowledge provided by modern science and historical investigation.
Creation myths provide an explanation of the origin of the universe in all its complexity. They are an important part of most mythological systems. Creation myths often invoke primal gods and animals, titanic struggles between opposing forces or the death and/or dismemberment of these gods or animals as the means whereby the universe and its components were created.
Apart from an explanation of the creation of the universe, mythologies also seek to explain everyday natural phenomena. The Egyptian scarab god Khepri, who rolled the ball of the sun across the sky each day thus provided an explanation of the rising of the sun each day, its progress across the sky and its setting in the evening. Similarly, the Maori of New Zealand attributed the morning dew to the tears of the god Rangi (Heaven) for the goddess Papa (Earth) from whom he was separated. This class of myth is sometimes called a nature myth.
Myths are also often used to explain human institutions and practices as well. For example, the Greek hero Pelops was reputed to have started the Olympic Games after Poseidon helped him win the hand of Hippodameia in a chariot race. This type of myth is thus etiological. It seeks to account for some human institution through a myth.
Another class of myth is the Theogenic myth. This sets out to delineate the relationships between various gods and other mythical personages and beings who are mentioned in previously existing myths. Theogenic Myths are thus secondary in their purpose. They set out to provide a reinforcement or framework for an existing system of myths. The best known example of this is the Theogeny of Hesiod.
It should not be thought that the functions of myths as delineated above are mutually exclusive. For example creation myths by their very nature are usually Theogenic as well. Myths can, and have, served many purposes. Myths and systems of myths have been created by human beings for many reasons over thousands of years. They are a superb product of humanity collectively and a rich resource for the enjoyment of all mankind. Their fantastic and unreal nature to our modern eyes should not prevent us from enjoying them.
Article created on 17 April 1997; last modified on 02 August 2004.
© 1995-2004 Encyclopedia Mythica. All rights reserved.
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What are myths?Bob Trubshaw
We all know what we mean when we use the word 'myth'. The problem is, different people use the word in many different ways. In everyday speech a 'myth' is something that is imaginary and untrue. Indeed, this pejorative sense was exactly what brought the word back into use in the mid-nineteenth century. Early folklorists defined folklore as survivals from 'primitive' stages of culture into more advanced stages. However this meant that 'primitive' societies, such as native American Indians, could not have folklore in the technical sense. So 'mythology' was adopted to characterise these living systems of tales and beliefs of 'primitive' people, and 'folklore' was reserved for the survival of these systems in civilised societies.
The origins of the word 'myth' reveal yet another different meaning. The earliest uses of the Greek word mythos are somewhat difficult to assess but in the Illiad this word and its compounds are used 167 times, almost always to describe a powerful male giving orders or making boasts. Mythos are performed at length, in public, by a male in a position of authority. Nowhere are they considered untrue, symbolic, sacred or such like (Lincoln 1999: 17–18). But later prose writers such as Herodotus (c.484–424 BCE) begin to tinge mythos with notions of tall tales and legend. For Plato (c.428–347 BCE) mythos acquires the sense of things he could not believe, in contrast to more rational and philosophical concepts, and this is the way the word was used by later Greeks. (Puhvel 1987: 1)
Early mythologists were not sympathetic to the richness of 'primitive' cultures, and their ideas seemed to them merely fanciful and 'savage' – they followed Plato in terming them 'myths'. However before long such myths were recognised as being of considerable interest, mythology – the study of myths – took root.
When the whole notion of 'savages', 'primitive cultures' and 'survivals' was demolished in the twentieth century, mythologists reinvented the meaning of 'myth'. Myths became stories in some way 'sacred' to a society, metaphorical means of conveying 'truths' (or perceived truths within that society). So myths gave a 'structure' to the society or group – they explained such matters as the origin and organisation of the cosmos, social organisation such as gender and kingship, and told of deities and heroes.
In the minds of key mythologists, myth became synonymous with religion. In the formative years of mythology it could be said that 'primitive societies had myths whereas civilised societies had religion'. However only a small amount of comparative mythology revealed that Genesis was one among many similar 'mythical' accounts of creation. The Bible was as much myth as, say, the Australian Aborigines' Dreamtime.
Many of the leading mythologists of the twentieth century considered that all myths are religious myths, and myths have a religious structure and fulfil a religious function. This is the sense in which myth is commonly used by mythologists today:
Myth ... is now recognised as a serious expression of some sacred truth. (Cooper 1992: iv)
Myth operates by bringing a sacred ... past to bear preemptively on the present and inferentially on the future ... (Puhvel 1987: 2)
So we may say that a myth is typically a sacred story ... (Cupitt 1982: 29)
A myth is a story that is sacred to a group of people ... (Tarzia 1999: 39)
However defining myth by reference to a term – 'sacred' – that has considerable complexities of its own is less than helpful. 'Myth' is widely used with these religious and sacred connotations, and as a consequence this usage will recur throughout this book too. Nevertheless, this book also explores myths where the epithet 'sacred' seems inappropriate. Myths do not necessarily recount tales of the origins of the cosmos, gods, rituals, or sacred events. A great many traditional ones do. A great many modern day myths do not.
If myths provide a 'structure' to how societies think about the world they often do so by contrasting perceived 'opposites' – the king with his servants, the rich with the poor, heroes with monsters, gods with humans, the socially approved with 'outcasts', order with chaos, constructive with destructive agents and forces, young with old, male with female, light with dark, and so on.
These 'structures' – a better term for the more complex ones might be 'ideologies' – are elaborated into narratives, that is stories recounting a sequence of events. A single mythical idea can be expressed in many different ways, and can be interwoven with other mythic motifs. Societies evolve one or more 'families' of myths, which change over time and probably have counterparts in other societies. Myths have a tendency to degenerate into epic legends, ballads, or to survive only in the attenuated form of 'superstitions', folk customs and other 'nostalgic' notions.
The origins of myths are invariably with pre-literary or 'oral' societies which, as Walter Ong has discussed in detail (Ong 1982), differ greatly from the way thinking evolved after the advent of writing. Philosophy and science work by inductive or deductive arguments. In contrast, myth uses narrative to explore such 'abstract' notions as origins, causes, goals and changes (Hatab 1990; Flood 1996: 27). Modern-day myths differ greatly from those of oral societies (although mythic motifs are every bit as prevalent in modern-day society, as will be explored in articles such as the politics of culture).
What has not changed is that myths are essentially verbal. Mythical entities may be depicted in pictures, carvings, masks and other iconic forms. Myths may be alluded to or re-enacted in ceremonial, ritual, drama, dance, magic and other forms of symbolic activities. But these images and activities are not, in themselves, myths. Modern myths find their most fluent expression in the 'non-written' media of cinema, TV and computer games but, despite the importance of visual images in these media, the narratives rely greatly on the verbal aspects of the script and on mythic motifs that are essentially verbal distinctions rather than purely iconographic.
Myths are deadly serious
Modern mythologists use the term 'myth' without any pejorative overtones. Indeed, as Jaan Puhvel states:
Myth in the technical sense is a serious object of study, because true myth is by definition deadly serious to its originating environment. In myth are expressed the thought patterns by which a group formulates self-cognition and self-realization, attains self-knowledge and self-confidence, explains its own source and being and that of its surroundings, and sometimes tries to chart its destinies. By myth man has lived, died and – all too often – killed.
(Puhvel 1987: 2)
Although Puhvel's wording is rather stilted, this is a definition that suffices to unite the senses in which 'myth' is used in foamy custard (although Puhvel continues with the statement that myth operates by bringing a sacred past to bear on the present, which I am less comfortable with as some of the most powerful modern day myths are secular).
I fully concur with the profundity of the final sentence of the quotation from Puhvel. Myths are not the preserve of primitive societies but predominate in all cultures. At the time of writing, in 2003, one economically- and militarily-dominant culture is currently inflicting its simplistic myths on the rest of the world. These myths are killing and ruining the lives of people in Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, south Asia and numerous other places. Political and economical myths sharing the same ideologies are being inflicted on every nation.
Mythology is often considered to be the study of narratives from people who are well-separated from 'us' in space and/or time. Indeed, most mythology has been the study of such myths. But we are missing out on the real importance of mythology if we do not also consider the myths that are alive and well in modern day 'Western' cultures. The underlying emphasis of this book is to show that 'old school' mythology – which associates myths with 'others', distant in place and/or time – needs to be augmented by approaches that fully engage with myths as they manifest in almost every aspect of modern life, secular as well as religious.
Lance Bennett has argued that myths are not so much the contents of consciousness as deep structures that shape the contents of consciousness (Bennett 1980). Repeated exposure to myths – or merely mythic motifs – rather than conscious learning is responsible for embedding myths into the structure of our consciousnesses. The consequence of these 'deep structures' is that myths manifest in the modern world as 'fragmentary references, indirect allusions, watchwords, slogans, visual symbols, echoes in literature, film, songs, public ceremonies, and other forms of everyday situations, often highly condensed and emotionally charged.' (Flood 1996: 84); see introductory guide to cosmologies as 'deep structures'.
In modern society such myths are as likely to be intermeshed with political ideologies as they are with the notions of the sacred. Indeed, in today's secular world political myth has almost as much authority as sacred myths once had. 'Political myths' and 'sacred myths' have a close affinity, in that they are essentially narrative forms of ideology. Despite the close similarities of political myths and sacred myths, academics still consider that the two cannot be equated; see separate article on politics of culture.
Mythology, mythography and other definitions
These introductory attempts to 'define' myth are intended only to set the stage for the more detailed discussions elsewhere in the foamy custard site. However, two further definitions and distinctions are necessary before continuing.
'Mythology' is widely-used as a term for a collection of myths from a common culture. However the origin of the word means the 'study of myths' and, to avoid undue confusion, it is in that sense that will be used exclusively in my contributions (except in quotations). This also implicitly recognises that 'mythology' is usually inappropriate for describing the myths of a culture, as cultures actually have mythologies, rather than merely 'one' mythology.
In recognition of this confusion, American mythologists have begun to refer to the study of myths as 'mythography'. At one level this makes good sense, as the Concise Oxford English Dictionary states that a mythographer is a 'compiler of myths'. But the same dictionary defines mythography as 'the representation of myths in plastic art' (making mythography a direct counterpart to iconography, the representation in drawing or paint). So using 'mythography' to mean the study of myths simply adds confusion for those not previously familiar with the term.
bibliographical references
BENNETT, W. Lance, 1980, 'Myth, ritual and political control', Journal of Communication, 30, 166–79.
COOPER, J.C. (ed), 1992, Brewer's Book of Myth and Legend, Cassell.
CUPITT, Don, 1982, The World to Come, SCM Press.
FLOOD, Christopher G., 1996, Political myth: A theoretical introduction, Garland.
HATAB, Lawrence J., 1990, Myth and Philosophy: A contest of truths, Open Court.
ONG, Walter J., 1982, Orality and literacy; reprinted Routledge 2002.
PUHVEL, Jaan, 1987, Comparative Mythology, John Hopkins UP.
TARZIA, Wade, 1999, 'A glance into mythography', 3rd Stone, 36, 39–44.
Based on a chapter of Explore Mythology.
copyright © Bob Trubshaw 2003
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